New York Daily News

Running Doc: How to properly treat and prevent swimmer's shoulder

Dr Lewis Maharam·Jan 1, 2018 7:00 AM

Dear Running Doc:

Swimming's turned out to be great for my cold-weather training, and I'm in the pool three or four days a week now. But I've started to get a mild pain in my left shoulder mostly during workouts, and I'm worried. It's probably “swimmer's shoulder,” my workout buddies tell me, the rotator cuff muscles. That's what ends pitchers' careers. What do I do?

Rebecca G., Manhasset, NY

Thanks, Rebecca, for the question. Rotator cuff injury was once called “swimmer's shoulder” for the sport in which it was first identified, and most people still know it as what hits major-league pitchers who go for surgery and are never heard from again.

But “that was then.” This is 2017, and we have better procedures for treating it and more effective ways of preventing it.

The rotator cuff is a small group of four muscles that hold your upper arm bone, or humerus, up into the ball-and-socket joint. Normally, they work like tight little marionette strings. In severe cases they tear, which is the debilitating condition people think of.

But when they're simply overused they stretch, and when that happens, the upper arm bone gets a little loose and starts pinching the muscles that wrap over the shoulder. The result is sore muscles and tendinitis.

Anyone in a sport that uses overhead arm motion, like swimmers, baseball and football players, tennis players, and weightlifters, can get it. When pain first starts every time they raise their hand above their shoulder, they should get themselves to a sports medicine doctor who will probably diagnose it as a loose or “subluxing” shoulder. Some elementary rehab exercises (below) will tighten it back up, but a bad case can take up to 16 weeks to get straightened out so it's better to strengthen the muscles before they cause trouble.

Rotator cuff muscles are picky. They don't handle anything over about 15 pounds, so even if you're already lifting, chances are other muscles are taking the load and the rotator cuffs are lying idle.

But the following will shape them up. First have a professional check to be sure you don't in fact have a tear, then get to work.

Twice each day, one arm at a time, 50 reps, 5 to 15 pounds. If that's too much, reduce the weight, not the reps.

Biceps Curls — Standing, and to full extension. Go back down slowly.

There are now better ways to remedy swimmer's shoulder.Image by: Lee Jin-man/AP

Lewis G. Maharam, MD, FACSM is one of the world’s most extensively credentialed and well-known sports health experts. Better known as Running Doc™, Maharam is author of Running Doc’s Guide to Healthy Running and past medical director of the NYC Marathon and Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon series. He is Medical Director of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training program. He is also past president of the New York Chapter of the American College of Sports Medicine. Learn more at runningdoc.com.

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